


Until we go down

by Orlha



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Canon compliant when it fits, F/M, Forbidden Love, Love Wins, Romance, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-05-22 09:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6074731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was a goddess and he was a mortal man, but they were always meant to be. Across time, across realms, across mortality and immortality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rising and falling

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re interested. This is the ‘[soundtrack](https://soundcloud.com/ruelle-2/until-we-go-down)’ for this story.

“What art thou searching f’r?” A voice broke Bucky’s thoughts. Lost in the forest had been a humbling experience for him. A city boy through and through, Bucky had been unintentionally separated from his unit and unable navigate his way back.

That was three days ago.

Now he was lying there on the cold, hard ground, wondering if Stevie was safe back in Brooklyn or still trying to get himself drafted, praying that his best friend would stick his ass firmly in that apartment that his rations were still going to.

The old english startled Bucky but not more than the fact that there was a female beside him and he had not realised it. Had he been so dehydrated and famished that he had lost track of what he was? He turned his head and saw a woman dressed in seemingly richly fabricated clothes that was neither silk nor velvet, trimmed with gold and embroidered with silver. Her pale face was framed by her long dark curls, soft lips that curled gently as she crouched by him. It wasn’t her beauty or her very odd presence that mesmerised him, it was the sight of her eyes that seemed to hold the skies of heaven themselves that lost him.

“What art thou searching f’r?” she repeated, her fingers brushing over his cheek, snapping him out of his reverie.

“A way back? Home,” he rasped through cracked lips.

The woman looked into the distance before turning her eyes back at him. “The base? Or backeth to Brooklyn; to the sirrah, Steven Grant Rog’rs?”

Perhaps she was an angel and he was already dead. Bucky loosed the wry chunkle from his chest, tongue licking his dry lips as he struggled to pull himself to a sitting position. The cloth on her shimmered like the skies at dusk when his hand brushed against it. “What are you?”

“It depends on what thou wisheth to calleth me.”

The sincerity of her words surprised Bucky. He’s heard that line before but it had usually been camouflaged with lies and deceit, though also usually with not such thick old english accent. Opening and closing his mouth several times, Bucky finally asked, “What do they usually call you?”

“M’rtals calleth me Gaia ‘r Terra, Tellus ‘r Cel occasionally.” She cupped her hands together and water pooled in her cupped hands. Bucky drank the offered water, staring at her with unveiled shock.

“Why is Mother Earth bothering with me?”  

The woman - the _goddess_ , Bucky corrected himself, threw her head back and laughed. “I am not Moth’r Earth.” The robes swished in its scintillating colours as she sprung to her feet. “I am an imm’rtal that tends the land. Not the only one, but m’rtals doth no careth too much of what ye are, except of what lay-to ye are to them. We bronze the fields of gold, moveth the lands. We art not Moth’r, but are parteth of h’r. Dost that explaineth thy questioneth?” She cocked her head at him, her eyes glinting with amusement.

“No…” he shook his head. “It doesn’t not explain why _you_ are bothering with me or _what_ your name is. What do you wish to be called?”

“Bold.” She laid a warm hand on his cheek and a frisson of warmth surged through him. “I liketh it.”

Bucky found he had the energy to stand again, the energy to run and perhaps take on anything that he might come across.

“Walketh straight until thou seeth the twin riv’rs. Then followeth against the floweth. Thou shall meeteth thy friends th’re.”

He turned to the direction she point, slung his rifle across his shoulder and as he made his way down that direction, he heard her add quietly and in the silence of the forest, he heard her clearly.

“I liketh the nameth Skye. Ventus mocks me, but I liketh it anyway.”

She was gone when he turned at her words. Not even a depression of a footprint to indicate that she had been there. Bucky hadn’t expected it otherwise. Not from the immortal that looked after the earth at least. It was another three hours of stumbling through the undergrowth before he came to the river and another three of walking against the river’s flow before he found Dum Dum and Morita searching for him. They gave him a tight hug, sighs of relief echoed through the sixteen men. He let them draw themselves around him, let them drown him in their bickering as he thought of the woman he met in the forest. The melodic timbre of her voice and the mesmerising eyes.

Bucky never told anyone about it, never told anyone about what happened in the forest and no one prodded. They assumed something bad had happened and like bad memories, they assumed that he wanted to not think of it, but they were wrong. Bucky just didn’t want to share the memory. The memory of the goddess was his and his only.

\----

He fell screaming. Cold air rushing past him as he fell further down the mountain. He was going to die. Either from the eventual crashing to the ground that might have been better or the wounds from the fall. Bucky hoped that Steve wouldn’t try to find him. He held no illusions on how his body might look after he fell and Steve’s soft heart wouldn’t have the strength for that.

Then he heard the soft whisper by his ear, clear as crystal, as though his ears were not swamped by the sizzling of wind. “Always in troubleth, aren’t thou?”

A warmth cradled him, slowing his descent. Trees seemingly purposefully crashing into him. They were not as painful as Bucky thought it would have been. Their branches seemed to caress him, dropping him gently upon layers and layers of leaves.

There was pain, pain from his left arm but apart from that, he felt physically fine. The goddess was there again, hand gently stroking his cheek, eyes of heaven frowning as she glanced to his left arm. “Thou will be fine. Don’t thou w’rry. Thou und’rstand?” She swung her head to the woman on her right, her melodic voice smeared in anguish. “Findeth his arm. We has to findeth his arm. We can still saveth it.”

“Sist’r. We cannot int’rf’re with the fates of m’rtals. Thou knoweth that.”

“We can!” He heard the stumble of her voice in his darkening haze. “I begeth of thou f’r this boon. Prithee sis’r. Findeth his arm.”

Bucky reached up, his hand enveloping her smaller hand on his cheek. “It’s okay,” he said to her. “It’ll be okay.”

“Nay! I will not leteth thou-” he felt her be pulled from him and she screamed in fury. “Sist’r! Please!”

“We cannot int’rf’re with the fates of m’rtals,” was her only answer and then they were gone. The warmth that cradled him dissipated, leaving only the cold, the pain and the gnawing fear. He was glad he got to see her again, if anything. That his last view of life was her and then he let the darkness take him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise if anyone has been waiting updates for the other stories. Been out of it lately with a lot of personal issues. If you're waiting for updates of any of the stories, please do message/ask me on [tumblr](http://luna-orlha.tumblr.com/) about it, so I know there's people still waiting for it. 
> 
> I'm sorry.


	2. Regaining and Losing

The woman was there again. The Soldier knew she should not be there. The sight of her eyes seemed to catch hold of something that he never knew existed in his chest.

_“Bold. I liketh it.”_

He almost remembered her. The memory of her was illusive. He remembered her robes, the same robes that she still wore, the way it flowed about like her water, carrying the colours of the skies. Her eyes, that seemed to carry the world, seemed to carry.. the word, what was the word he had used? The Soldier searched his mind, though he was uncertain why he bothered to. This _memory_ seemed to be distracting him from his mission. Eyes like...

“-heaven,” the word escaped his lips without realising. The Soldier glanced covertly at his handlers with a small relief that they hadn’t noticed him saying the word or the woman. How had she entered the base without anyone noticing her? He watched her as they put him into the freezer again. Watching her sad eyes until everything went dark.

She was there again at the corner of the room. This time he was alone with her. He was covered in blood, wiping the blood of his blade on the man’s shirt when he noticed her. The Soldier never not notices people presence. He should have been alarmed, should have attempted to fight her, but instead, a strange sense of serenity placated him.

“Thou doeth not needeth to goeth through this.”

The Soldier was not sure how to respond to her statement. He scrutinized her but nothing seemed to give away her through intention. The blade on his left arm hung loosely. The woman was a threat, should have been a threat. Her feet were quiet, her clothes should have made a noise, but there was nothing. She did not move like anything the Soldier had seen before.

“All thou needeth to doeth is asketh me and I shall saveth thou. Prithee.” She approached him and why the Soldier let her approach him, he could not understand. “I can saveth thou. Thou just needeth to asketh.”

She laid a warm hand on his cheek and he saw the glistening of tears in her eyes. “James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. Asketh me. Asketh me to saveth thou!”

James Buchanan Barnes. That word sounded so familiar, like it was a name. The Soldier scoffed at the small inner voice, squashing it. It wasn’t a name. Soldiers did not have names.

“He can not asketh thou that,” another voice pitched in.

Another woman stood behind her. Her hair was red like fire, curls rolling down her head like a waterfall.. Her eyes were green, her body was lithe, built just like the woman. It was the kind of women that his handlers would not have enjoyed, but the Soldier had always preferred the lithe build of the women and he found himself curling at disgust at his inner commentary.

Soldiers did not have opinions.

“He dost not yea knoweth who he is anym’re,” she said and rested her hand on the woman’s shoulder. The woman leaned into her hand, retracting her hand from his face. The Soldier was startled at his sorrow of losing her warmth. “Sist’r. Thou might not but returneth now. Moth’r summons thou.”

The woman nodded, moving her hand to stroke his cheek once more before kissing his cheek gently. “Thy nameth is James Buchanan Barnes. Thou wilt not f’rget that.”

The Soldier stared at her as she faded into nothing, heart hammering in his chest. He did not know why his body was acting that way, but her words had lit a fire in him. He had to fight. Fight to remember her words.

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. Three-two-five-five-seven.”

\----

She wept for the mortal man that she had grown to care. Despite her vows, she had done her best to not interfere with the man’s fate. His fate was dark, darker than other mortals but his redemption, his life after that was full of promise. She could have saved him, steered him into a better fate. She could have and she knew that.

“Daught’r of mineth.”

Skye ignored her mother’s voice, palming the tears that fell down her face.

“Octavia. Listeneth to me. Doth not grieve f’r him.” Her mother sat before her, wiping her tears with her handkerchief. “Thoust seen his fate. Moirai had p’rmitt’d thou to seeth his fat so thou may rest in comf’rt that in spite of all that he exp’riences, he will be happy.”

Her mother laid her head against her chest, running her hands through Skye’s hair, humming a tune. “I wanteth to riseth,” Skye said.

“Nay.” Her mother shook her head. “Nev’r.”

“I wanteth to riseth,” Skye reiterated. She pulled herself up to her full height, scrubbing fiercely .away the tears. Kneeling upon one knee, she clenched her jaw and stared straight at the Mother of Earth. “Mother Gaea, I wisheth to riseth-”

“Tellus!”

She continued, ignoring her mother’s insistent attempts to stop her. “I wisheth to returneth to the w’rld of the m’rtals and walketh as one of them.”

“Sist’r!” Her fellow sister stood at the doorway, staring horrified. “Please doeth not doeth this, sist’r.”

Skye took a shuddering breath, closing her eyes as she plowed on. “This is mine wisheth and the boon bestow’d upon me at birth.”

Light embraced her. She was burning in an aureate glow, her clothes were falling of her, unfit to be worn by her anymore. The lightness in her body was fading, replaced by the heaviness in her limbs. She was rising. Falling back onto earth.

“Sist’r!” Her once sister, held her in her arms. “Wherefore? F’r a m’rtal maneth? Is the maneth w’rth m’re than me?”

There was no words for Skye to say. No words of comfort. Her throat was a knot, the muscles that she had not been used to, struggled at her attempts to speak. Her limbs were in a disarray. How was she supposed to walk with this cumbersome weight?

“Na-” she grappled with her muscles. “-tas.”

Taking another trembling breath, Skye pushed her consternation away and held her sister tightly.”I will always loveth thou, mine sist’r.”

“As I will,” her sister replied. “I will be seeing thou again. Always.”

“Always.”

Moirai stood at the corner of the room. A knowing look in her face whilst she weaved Skye back to the wheel. Her last words echoing in Skye’s chest as she burnt. “‘twas always meant to be.”


	3. Finding and Returning

Skye was different from the other children. She had known this instinctively since she was capable of thoughts. She understood math easily, she understood languages easily. She had seen the older kids textbooks and had _understood_ them. It was not just that. There was a connection to the earth that she didn’t understand. Earth, sky, water, fire. They were a part of her as she was a part of them.

“Mary?”

She stared into the grey sky, breathing in the thick petrichor.The earthy smell of petrichor always reminded her of home. Why, she didn’t know. Home was a strange thing for her to associate with. Unlike the other kids at the orphanage, she grew up from the system within. She didn’t have people she called parents once upon a time or a place that she lived once.

“It’s going to rain, Mary.”

“No it’s not.” It smelt like it was, it looked like it was, but Skye knew otherwise. The storm clouds were going to pass by them and rain onto the next town.

“Why? Did the _clouds_ tell you again?” She could hear the older girl roll her eyes.

“It’s not Mary. It’s Skye, with a E.”

“Freak,” she muttered before leaving Skye alone in the garden.

Skye continued staring at the sky, feeling the strange itch in her head. There was something she forgot, something very important.

“Hast thou rememb’red?” The woman beside her asked.

She whirled around in surprise. It was as though she had suddenly appeared out of thin air. Skye couldn’t help but think that the woman was familiar despite the fact that the woman had a presence that she was unlikely to forget. There was a word that sat on the tip of her tongue, a name, was it the woman’s? It couldn’t be. She hadn’t met the woman before. Her dark hair falling down her face, bright red lips and a body with curves that would have rivalled any big actress. She arched a groomed eyebrow at Skye, red lips curving with grim misery.

“Moirai li’d. H’r vision was a lieth.”

“Who are you?”

The woman looked gloomily at her, a pale hand outstretched to gently touch her eyebrows. “Thou doeth not rememb’r aught.”

Skye frowned at her. “You speak funny. Can’t you speak normally? And is there some reason that you’re here, I could get a.. nun or something.”

This time her red lips twitched into a genuine smile. “Thou art still the same.” Her hand properly cupped Skye’s face now. Skye could feel the strange warmth from her, her blue eyes drawing her in. “Nat is gone and so is Jay. We were twelve and now we art seven.”

She should move from the strange woman, she was drawing too close into her personal space for Skye’s comfort.

“Mary!” Sister Maria’s voice called from the sliding doors and she turned instinctively to catch the black and white clothed lady from the doors looking impatiently at her. “It’s going to rain, Mary. You’ll catch a cold.”

Why hadn’t she-

Skye turned and the woman that been looking forlornly at her was gone. Just like how she had appeared. Who was she? How had she appeared and disappeared without anyone noticing? Only questions lingered in her wake, questions that Skye had to find answers for.

\----

Skye was done staying at the orphanage. She was done being carted around from home to home, being rejected over and over again. She wasn’t that young that she couldn’t fend for herself. Stuffing her backpack with what little she had, she slung it across her back, hopping over the windowsill and onto the tree branch, shimmying down the tree.

The city was silent not that she had expected otherwise at three in the morning. In the distance, she could hear someone’s dog barking, the trees rustling in the wind as she walked down the pavement. By morning, she would be halfway across the city where she would catch the next departing bus. Skye hadn’t thought past that but she had two rolls of tens at the bottom of her haversack which would have done her fine for awhile. Perhaps she could hit up one of the other foster kids that had gotten out of the system. Matt was staying the dorms if she wasn’t wrong or perhaps even Katie. Her thoughts faltered as she rounded the bend and came face to face the woman.

She hadn’t noticed it previously, but her clothes were finely sewn with gold edges. The colours of her dress shimmered with her every step but it was not like any kind of fabric she knew. No fabric in the world could so perfectly replicate the dawning of the sun and the setting of the sun in every movement. They weren’t colours, they looked like the actual sunrise and sunset.

“Octavia Terra Silvanus,” the woman said, stopping right in front of her.

“Skye,” she corrected the woman.

“Yes. Thou always preferred Skye as how I had always preferred Darcy.”

“Well, Skye is better than Mary Sue Poots.”

The woman, Darcy, inclined her head. “Walketh with me, Skye.”

Skye didn’t want to follow the woman, but she _was_ walking in the direction of the bus depot which was her original plan. There wasn’t much harm in following her part way, right?

“What is it?” She asked. Darcy had said nothing for the large portion of their stroll and while she did enjoy the silence and the heat of the woman in the early spring chill, she found the need for answers pressing. “How did you find me or know how to find me?”

Darcy regarded her with an unsettling light in her eyes, carefully, she replied, “Thy true name is Octavia Terra Silvanus. Moirai li’d when she promis’d that thou’d remember. Doth thee recall wherefore thou rose?” She shook her head and leaned her mouth to Skye’s ears, hands gripping her head gently.

“Sist’r. Remember James Buchanan Barnes. Remember wherefore you rose.” She visibly pulled herself together, the edges of her glowing in pale aureate light. “Take the bus to Austin, Skye. Find a man called Miles Lydon.”

Then in a brilliant burst of light, the woman, Darcy, was gone.

James Buchanan Barnes. The name rolled in her stomach like a bad memory. Why should she listen to the strange woman? There was no reason to, but there was no reason not to either. No. There were plenty of reasons not to. The woman could be one of the weirdoes who thought stage-drama was hilarious. She wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be the case. Disappearing in a burst of light? That sounded overdramatic.

Skye stared at the bus departure times. But what _did_ she have to lose?

“One ticket for the seven-thirty to Austin.”

 


	4. Forgetting and Remembering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hover over the words for translation. Translation at the bottom if you can't.

When the Soldier saw the man on the bridge, there was a sense of nostalgia then. Of course the Soldier didn’t know what nostalgia was, so he brushed it off, to review when he completed his mission.  The movements the man on the bridge made were familiar, like movements of a long ago memory. Before the man with weird blond hair, before the freezing, before the Red Room. What was before the Red Room? The Soldier could not remember what was before the Red Room.

“Bucky?” The man on the bridge said.

_Her brown hair framing her pale face, soft lush lips parting as she spoke to him. Her hands were so warm, so soft, so gentle._

_All thou needeth to doeth is asketh me and I shall saveth thou._

Her name? What was her name? What was _his_ name? The man on the bridge, he knew _him_.

“Bucky? It’s me-” The man on the bridge said.

“Who the hell’s Bucky?” The Soldier snarled. He could not comprehend the frustration that ran through him.

_All thou needeth to doeth is asketh me and I shall saveth thou._

_M’rtals calleth me Gaia ‘r Terra, Tellus ‘r Cel occasionally._

“Gaia,” the words barely made a whisper before he heard a loud swoosh of the air and found himself kicked backwards. He pulled himself up, the sound of her voice echoing in his head.

_Thy nameth is James Buchanan Barnes. Thou wilt not f’rget that._

Confused, he stared at the man on the bridge. He remembered the hot summers of Brooklyn, playing by the fire hydrant, stealing kisses from girls in the alleys. The man on the bridge had been there, smaller, but he had been there.

No.

The man on the bridge was his mission. A mission he had to complete. He raised his gun. Hesitation that should not have been there stilled his forefinger. He saw the woman by the car. Hair red like fire, straight though the fragments of memories told him it should have been curled. The woman _she_ called Sister.

Then he saw the rocket launcher a moment too late.

\----

He pulled Steve Rogers out of the lake. He remembered him now. Remembered how he used to be small and frail, how he towered over Steve. Things were different then as they were now.

Steve was bigger now, stronger and no longer needed him. Now he needed him. He needed to know what he was, what he was apart from being a monster. The leaked files told him that he was the boogeyman, the hushed whispers of the unfortunate. They accounted tens and tens of kills to his codename, but he knew otherwise.

He saw Steve, white and clean, untainted by the poison he carried, so he kept running. He had to. He had to know _what_ he was first, _who_ he was first.

The man in the mirror wasn’t the man in the memories anymore. He wasn’t Bucky and he wasn’t the Winter Soldier most of the time now.

“I have to run,” he tells the man with wings. He didn’t know what the man with wings’ name was but he didn’t care, as long the man with wings stopped Steve from following him.

“We can help you,” the man with wings told him.

“I need to find out. Myself,” he told him.

“He just wants to know you’re safe.” The man with wings motioned to the punk across the room to not come. He couldn’t help but feel the pang of regret and guilt at Steve’s crestfallen face, but this was a journey he had to go alone. It was pointless being told. He had to find out and he had to figure who _he_ was.

The man with wings settled his coffee cup on the saucer, his finger tapping on the rim as he looked thoughtfully at him. “Hydra’s still looking for you, you know right?”

He knew it more keenly than the other two. He wasn’t stupid. They had probably the man in the flying metal suit leading Hydra in circles. His journey would be a lot harder by himself - a lot harder.

“I know.” He stared sullenly back at the man with wings’ eyes. “I know,” he repeats those two words, each word carrying the weight of knowing how much harder his journey would be. “Myself.”

The man with wings’ eyes flickered to where the punk was standing stockstill and he sensed the hesitation in the man with wings. If hesitation was his problem, he just had to make it easy for the man. “Tell him to stop following. Or else I will disappear,” he levelled a look at the man with wings.

Standing, he eyed the punk a cold, calculating look. The words would crush him but he’ll have some time bought before Steve decided to come after him again.

\----

He had come to a certain uneasy peace with himself. He was not Winter Soldier anymore, but he wasn’t Bucky either. He was a mix of both and somehow, that was okay with him. Bucky was an arrogant snot who thought he was good, Winter Soldier was good but had nothing of the emotions that Bucky did and together they balanced out.

“Bucky. We want to help you destroy Hydra. Please. Let us help you.”

James shook his head even though he knew Steve could not see it. There was just one last place he had to go alone. “I’m not taking down Hydra. Not for this one.” He took a surreptitious lookout as he dropped another coin into the payphone. He sensed a brewing argument, his refusal of their help always resulted in that. “There was a woman-” James started, not really sure how to explain the significance.

“Another assassin?” Steve asked immediately.

“I remember parts of her,” James replied. “She saved me. Twice.”

“And you think by going wherever you’re going, you’ll find her?”

There was doubt in Steve’s voice, heavy with worry. The punk thought that just because he was a recovering amnesic meant he didn’t know shit. Maybe that was a bit too harsh.

“She’s not from here, she’s-” James fell silent as he heard the phone snatched from Steve, the rapid murmur that James could probably hear if he tried, but he didn’t. He was getting used to the idea of privacy and not having his guard up around Steve. Steve would tell him if it was important.

The voice that came on next wasn’t Steve.

“Маленький мальчик1,”

,” the woman said. It took James a moment to recognise the voice and put a face to the voice. She was the little girl he trained in the red room, the woman that shot the rocket launcher at him, the woman with hair like fire and curls that fell down her back.

“Natalia. Я довольно уверен, что я старше тебя2 ,” he replied, an unwitting grin spreading across his face.

“Это зависит от того, если вы'вновь говорим об этом орган или один до этого3.” James was unused to hearing her voice quiet and laden of pain. “Она закрывается для вас. Она стала смертельной для вас, вы глупо man4.”

_Her hair was red like fire, curls rolling down her head like a waterfall.. Her eyes were green, her body was lithe, built just like the woman._

“You are her sister.”

“Yes, I am.”

There was a sense of finality to her words. James could hear the roar of his heart beating in his ears as he registered her words. The woman became a mortal for him.  “Is she dead?” The words that James could barely stand saying. He had thought that she was an immortal, thought that if he went back to place where it all started, he could see her again. It was her dark eyes that led him through the darkness, the promise that if he only asked, she would save him. He hadn’t taken her up on the promise; James had wanted to be a better man, wanted to be a better man for her. Knowing the fragility of his own mental state, he knew he hadn’t much to offer.

“Did you not realise it when you called for her? She did not come.”

“Is she dead?” James pressed. The pay-phone started beeping for another coin but he had run out. The call was never meant to be so long, now he wished he had more coins.

“I don’t know. We lost track of her during the Hydra raid-”

“Hydra what?” He demanded. Could have the Hydra taken her? James hung the phone, taking the pavement and blending into the city. If Hydra had taken her, he would have to figure how to get her back. Slipping into an alley, he jumped up the way, grabbing the fire escape’s railing and flipped himself onto the fire escape. He allowed the bustle of the city drown the growing despair in him. He wasn’t going to panic and let Bucky’s stupidity overrule the Winter Soldier’s tactical mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Маленький мальчик - Little boy  
> 2\. Я довольно уверен, что я старше тебя - I’m pretty sure I’m older than you  
> 3\. Это зависит от того, если вы'вновь говорим об этом орган или один до этого. - That depends if you’re talking about this body or the one before this.  
> 4\. Она закрывается для вас. Она стала смертельной для вас, вы глупо man - She rose for you. She became a mortal for you, you stupid man.


	5. Meeting and Goodbyes

The air was tingling when Skye woke up. The obelisk had done something to her. She was different. She always had been different but now she knew exactly how different she had been. Skye lay on the gurney, feeling her heart beat beneath her ribs. The rapid beating that was too fast to be okay. She placed her fingers over her heart, taking a slow breath and slowed the beating. It wasn’t just the beating of her heart.

No, it was far more than that.

Her skin buzzed, the scent of antiseptic flooding her nose. The feel of power beneath her skin. She could feel blood coursing in her veins, the centrifuge spinning away that Simmons had set just an hour ago. She could feel Mack pacing from the quarantine cell in the other lab, the soft muttering of DC along with the scratching of pencil that Fitz used to improve hand and eye coordination.

The earth above them spoke to her, joyous in her final reconciliation with them. She wasn’t human. She had never been and would never be.

“ _Mother Gaea_ ,” she called out, the accent was hard on her unused tongue but her words vibrated with power that she knew _she_ would hear.

The woman faded into existence just outside her quarantine cell. The lines on her face so familiar that the human part of her recognised her. “Sister Maria?” Skye said in disbelief. “Mother Gaea, you were Sister Maria all along?”

The lady placed a wrinkled hand on the glass. “Aye. That was me.”

“You changed,” Skye said. The accent that Skye remembered her mother having had been mostly diminished, replaced by an almost modern accent. For a moment her mother looked like Sister Maria, the wrinkled lines across her weathered face, the pale blue eyes that always treated her with kindness. Her mother had been forever young, luscious dark green hair that fell to her waist, eyes green like young leaves. Had things changed when she rose?

“After you left, Natasha and Jane rose. Darcy was sentenced to watch over Jane for a hundred and one years. Things are changing, my child.”

With so many of the goddess falling, the burden of work would have fallen on Mother. “Why?” she licked her lips nervously, turning her eyes to Mother’s. “Why did you let them rise?”

Mother Gaea stepped through the glass, her fingers brushing Skye’s eyes. A prickly feeling danced across her eyes and a wave of tears gathered on her eyes. “Do you see it?” she asked and held Skye’s hands out. Cords of multi-coloured threads wove around her hands and the single red one on her left ring finger. “Fate, my child. You have more story to write, more thread to loom before you finish it.”

Fate.

So the moment she was birthed from Mother Gaea’s womb, she had been given a fate. The word churned in her stomach noxiously. “What does this mean? That my choices had all been pre-determined?” Like a puppet?

“Oh no, my dear child. Fate doesn’t work that way. Fate exists everywhere and nowhere. She is the past, the present and the future. It is fated because you have chosen it. I knew the path would be hard for you. I tried to stop you.”

“But I chose it anyway,” she whispered.

Mother nodded and weaved her fingers through hers. She kissed Skye’s cheeks and took a step back.  “Fret not child. You’ll find them again.”

\----

James had been tracking her for months and then it was only when she flew to the ship when he finally caught up. His first action was to hijack a plane from the Avengers’ Tower but Steve was waiting there for him.

“Bucky.”

He motioned his hand at Steve and shook his head. “Not now. I need the plane.”

“This girl. Are you sure she’s worth it? Worth going back to fighting people?”

James stared at Steve. “Yes,” he said with a hard nod.

“Then I’m with you till the end of the line.”

“If you guys are down with your dick measurement content, please come in so that I can raise the ramp and save our girl,” Natasha called from the cockpit.

Steve only laughed and gave him a side hug. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise punk.”

\----

Skye was dying. Was this the end? Had she made the wrong choice somewhere? She felt her mind begin to slip as her _mother_ began to drain the life out of her.

“ _Mother-_ ” she gasped, unable to put power into her words to call for Mother. _Oh my God, someone, please._

She grappled with the woman for several moments, body shaking violently, trying to do something. The woman’s powers was sapping her faster than she could push her off.

“P-ple-ase-” she choked out. Skye tried to draw Jia Ying’s powers out with what she remembered of her goddess powers, she was still far attaining the powers she once had as a goddess but Jia Ying, she was too far gone. Her powers was dark with an oily film to it.

So here was where everything ended.

Regrets, she had a lot. She regretted drawing Natasha into this, regretting never talking to her about her feelings. Darcy had broke the goddess law and sentenced to a hundred and one years of punishment and there was nothing in her death that Skye had achieved to make Darcy’s sacrifice right. Bitter tears rolled down her cheeks. Then there was a loud bang. Blood splattering across her face and she collapsed, released from Jia Ying’s iron grip, ribs stuttering as she struggled for breath. Jia Ying lay on the ground, dead. A bullet straight through her head and just in time too.

“Skye!?” A low baritone called her urgently. Hands brushing her sweaty hair from her face, feeling down her body in a clinical way as though checking for injuries. Her body was limp in the man’s arms, her mind still stuck in a giddy stupor. “You’re okay,” he murmured to her, holding tightly onto her. He turned her face to face him, pale blue eyes staring at her with concern. A jolt of fire shot through her body as his gaze danced across her face.

She remembered him. She remembered her before him. The fields of gold, the wet earth between her toes, the smell of sun in Autumn air, the crunch of snow just before spring. She remembered dancing in harvest festivals, unseen by human eyes, drifting through the wind.

She was not Daisy Johnson, daughter of Jia Ying and Calvin Johnson. She was Octavia Terra Silvanus, Skye, a goddess of earth, daughter of Mother Gaea.

And he was the man that she had given up her immortality for.

“J-James Buchanan B-Barnes?” she finally managed through trembling lips. Her human body was so much frailer than her immortal body, trembling from the receding adrenaline.  

“Always in trouble, aren’t you?”

Her lips twitched in response though she said nothing. Skye sat up and took a shuddering breath, the body that had been her biological mother lay in front of her with a perfect shot through her head. “You saved me?”

“Yes.” There was no emotion behind James’ voice, there was nothing more or less than killing her.

“She was my mother.” His shoulders fell at her words, his eyebrows frowning with confusion. “Rather crazy, psychotic… biological mother.” Skye shook her head. Now that she had her memories back, the need to know her mother was such a silly human sentiment. She hadn’t been looking for her biological mother, she had been looking for her real mother the whole time, unconsciously feeling the tug of power that propelled her in her search for her history. She looked up at James. “Thank you.”

James looked at her in confusion, but brightened a bit when he saw in her eyes that she really meant it. He hadn’t failed her again.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way,” her father said, his voice heavy with grief. Tears ran down his face, but he found a smile for Skye. “We were supposed to protect you. Not hurt you.” He held his wife’s body, pressing his temple onto hers. “I didn’t realise she… we had gone so far off, that neither of us had noticed.”

“Don’t apologize; it was fate,” Skye told him. She thought that there would be grief, losing someone who had been her biological mother, but there was nothing but indifference. She was a goddess that was used to death, used to humans coming and going and the woman had been nothing more than a human that she had not known. “It was meant to be.”

Her father blinked at her in surprise, with an unsettling light in his eyes. “Fate?” He chuckled hollowly and picked Jia Ying’s body. “Fated to love and lose? What kind of fate is that?”

Skye chose to hold her peace, feeling the warmth of James’ hand on the small of her back. She was lucky that her road had led to a happy ending. She had managed to find James, James had remembered her. Or perhaps some time in the future she might turn out to be a bigger cog in the wheels of fate. For now she was happy and that was okay with her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished it! Thank you for [ladywinterlight](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyWinterlight/pseuds/LadyWinterlight) for beta-ing my chapters!! Especially when I struggled to end this story. I’m done with this AU for now and will be working on my other stories. 
> 
> Find me on [. Do take the time to comment and let me know what you think of this story. :)](http://luna-orlha.tumblr.com/)


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